An outdoor classroom in proximity to the successful Clinton Garden will accommodate environmental education, health and access for students at our large urban high school campus.
Leader
Raymond Pultinas
Location
100 West Mosholu Parkway, South Bronx, NY 10468
The time has come to expand The Clinton Garden by creating an outdoor classroom incorporated into what we propose to become The James Baldwin Memorial Outdoor Learning Center, a landmark site for urban environmental education in the Bronx and New York City. The dedication of this site to the memory of an alumnus whose courageous thoughts on inclusion, politics, race, gender and identity are part of our national heritage lends an appeal that will attract visitors.
The Clinton Garden has been an unqualified success at DeWitt Clinton High School. The garden was started in 2009 with students enrolled in Witt Seminar (an elective class on activism) in order to demonstrate where real food comes from and as a way of combating obesity and diet related diseases at our school. The garden has grown in size and productivity each year since its inception, as the soil has become more fertile and systems of composting have improved.
We envision a community learning space that invites students, faculty and staff of DeWitt Clinton High School Campus as well as neighbors from the surrounding Jerome Park Reservoir and Norwood communities and the Bronx and city itself. This proposed site would be dedicated to learning that takes place “outside the classroom” with a specific orientation towards student health and nutrition, food security and advocacy, environmental sustainability and learning connected to the garden itself: permaculture, urban food production, distribution, consumption, composting. It would also serve as a reserved outdoor classroom space for classes across all academic disciplines to study the garden, run experiments, write poetry, perform music and drama.
This site will feature what will become known as The Welcome Table to include seating to accommodate a class size of 35 students in honor of James Baldwin’s last play and his own custom of greeting his friends around a table. “The welcome table was a place of witness, where exiles could come and lay down their souls.” (Leeming, James Baldwin 374) This table would be used for a variety of instructional purposes to include demonstrations, projects, “maker” activities, science experiments as well as for sorting fruits and vegetables, preparing and serving food. The table will also be partly shaded at all times for the comfort of visitors. The table would function as a tangible aspect of the memorial to James Baldwin that educates visitors about his life, his learning, his writing and his enduring contributions to American society.
Also located on the site would be a storage facility for garden tools, additional chairs and classroom equipment. Finally, these constructions will be in the context of an expanded garden environment. Our plan is to extend the garden to the fence that borders the lower faculty parking lot, plant fruit and nut trees along the Western side of the gym building and in additional adjacent areas on the west and northern ends of our campus including the lawns extending to Goulden Avenue.
The James Baldwin Memorial Outdoor Learning Center will further enrich the environment of DeWitt Clinton High School and establish what is presently The Clinton Garden as a pedagogical space to engage urban students and community members with the beauty, diversity and productivity of the natural world. Perhaps the best laboratory that we can construct to teach the living environment and health will be one built outside in proximity to our revered and successful garden.
The Clinton Garden has already helped to change the lives of students at DeWitt Clinton by demonstrating how healthy foods are grown and by providing examples of the kind of work and activities that nourish and benefit the natural environment surrounding our school. Though we are a large urban high school, we also have a lovely and large campus. While students enjoy sports activities on our sports fields, the garden has repurposed a neglected piece of land and helped transform the space of our school and what it stands for. By contributing a safe habitat for plants, animals, birds and insects we have demonstrated the kind of caring that is vital for a sustainable future.
The James Baldwin Memorial Outdoor Learning Center expands our potential to reach not only the students on our campus but members of our surrounding local community as well.
